How to raise money for basketball team

Dan has served in the fundraising space for over a decade, consulting and assisting non-profits all over the world to become more effective and efficient by implementation of interactive digital solutions.

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22 Successful Basketball Fundraising Ideas for Your Team

As a basketball coach or volunteer, you want to ensure your players have everything they need to succeed on and off the court. That means you may need to turn to fundraising from time to time to keep your program up and running.

When it comes to managing or participating in a basketball program, expenses can pile up. Uniform and equipment costs, transportation to and from tournaments, new shoes—these aspects can get pricey for coaches and team parents. Fundraising ensures that your team can have access to the equipment and resources needed to thrive.

In this guide, we’ll highlight some of the best basketball fundraising ideas to help earn money for your team. Here’s what to expect:

• Top Basketball Fundraising Ideas
• Bonus: 4 Basketball Fundraising Tips for Your Team

Just like any sports fundraiser, your basketball fundraising efforts will rely on the support of your community to succeed. After reviewing our fundraising ideas list, stick around at the end for tips on how to fully engage your team and community in your fundraising activities.

Top Basketball Fundraising Ideas

1.

Take a page from the NBA playbook by hosting your very own three-point contest! Invite community members to register for the competition by contributing a donation to your team. Then, challenge participants to shoot as many three-pointers as they can within a defined time period, such as a minute.

Earn extra funds by inviting other community members to attend the event. Sell refreshments such as hot dogs, chips, and sodas. You can keep attendees highly entertained by planning additional activities throughout the competition, such as a dunk contest or half-court shot challenge.

Make sure you have a prize for the competition winner, whether it’s a large trophy, a gift card to a local restaurant, or free merchandise!

2. Tournament

Spark some friendly competition among community members by hosting a basketball tournament fundraiser. Encourage community members to form teams, choose team names, and gather matching shirts. Require each team to submit an entry fee to support your fundraising efforts.

To make your event a success, make sure it also includes these elements:

• A large venue, such as your school or community center gym
• Local business sponsorships to help fund the event
• Concessions
• Branded event merchandise to commemorate the experience (and earn extra funding!)
• A marketing strategy to get the word out
• Prizes for tournament winners

These elements can help you give participants a great experience to make your event a success and establish it as an ongoing tradition. Thank all attendees and competitors throughout the event and through follow-up emails and social media posts.

3. Walk-a-thon

A walk-a-thon is a fun, easy fundraising idea to raise money for your team. Here’s how it works:

• Your organization chooses walk-a-thon fundraising software like 99Pledges, which allows your supporters to generate individual fundraising pages.
• Your organization sets a date, time, and location for the event.
• Participants share their fundraising pages with their supporter network (family members and friends).
• Supporters pledge a fixed donation amount based on every unit of distance (lap, mile, etc.) participants walk.
• Participants complete the walk-a-thon and your organization collects donations from supporters.

This is a great fundraising idea to engage participants of all ages. Keep participants’ spirits high by playing music throughout the event and offering prizes at the end, such as free merchandise or sweet treats.

4. Fun Run/5K

5Ks and Fun runs are classic fundraising opportunities that encourage the runners and walkers of your community to come out and support your cause. Fundraising 5Ks are straightforward racing events where participants pay an entry fee to participate.

Fun runs, on the other hand, are more similar to walk-a-thons. Participants will similarly create personalized donation pages and solicit pledges from family and friends. Then, they’ll collect donations based on how long they run in the fun run or how many challenges they complete along the way.

To help participants collect more pledges, offer a few tips and best practices with a quick email or social media guide. For example, encourage participants to share their donation page at least once every two or three days and to reach out to potential donors personally to ask for their support.

5. Merchandise sale

What better way to help your supporters promote their love for your team than by offering branded merchandise for them to wear? With a merchandise sale, you can create comfortable, stylish t-shirts and sweatshirts for your dedicated supporters to show their love for your team.

Partner with a merchandise fundraising platform like Bonfire to easily upload and promote your t-shirt design. With Bonfire, you can sell your t-shirts without any fee required and receive 100% of the funds raised.

Make sure your shirts are branded to your team or organization, with your logo and colors, and that they’re visually appealing. You might engage community members more deeply in the fundraiser by asking them to send in t-shirt design ideas and vote on their favorite.

6. Bake sale

A bake sale is another tried-and-true fundraising idea that’s relatively easy to set up. Just ask the bakers of your community to contribute some yummy treats to your sale. You can sell your baked goods at games, tournaments, or local events, like a farmers’ market.

You can earn more through your bake sale by selling several baked goods in a package or bundle. For instance, you might offer a package of a cookie, brownie, and cupcake for $8. Or, you might sell full pies or cakes in addition to single slices. You can even incorporate additional refreshments into the sale, like hot chocolate or lemonade (depending on the time of year).

7. Chili cook-off

Invite the chefs in your community to put their skills to the test in a chili cook-off contest. This is an effective fundraiser to host in the fall or winter when the temperature drops and folks are looking for warm, comforting foods.

To earn funding from this event, you can require participants to submit an entry fee. You can also require a fee for attendees to be able to sample the chilis and vote on their favorites.

A chili cook-off also provides another opportunity to sell additional items, such as refreshments and branded merchandise. To put a fun spin on your event, you can incorporate other food items into the competition aspect, such as macaroni and cheese or cornbread.

8. Yard sale

Most of your community members likely have a box of clothes or random appliances sitting in their garage that they’ve been meaning to donate. Encourage community members to bring their used-but-not-abused items to put up for sale at a fundraising yard sale.

Host the event at a large, centralized venue, such as your community center or school gym. Create flyers to promote the event and hang them in popular community areas, such as the library, grocery store, or business storefronts (with the shop owners’ permission, of course!).

9. Scratch cards

A scratch card fundraiser is a simple way to earn some extra funding for your team. Here’s how it works:

• You order scratch cards. These scratch cards have a range of donation amounts hidden by scratchable circles.
• Your team members carry the scratch card with them and present them to family members, neighbors, and friends.
• The donors scratch a circle or two to reveal the hidden donation amounts. Then, they contribute those amounts to your organization.
• When you work with an established fundraising partner, your donors will receive a coupon sheet to use at sponsoring businesses in return for their donation.

When you equip each of your team members with a scratch card, the fundraising total can quickly add up, earning your organization hundreds of dollars. Plus, when donors receive something in return for their support, they’ll feel much more satisfied with their decision to give. It’s a win-win for community members and your cause!

10.

A car wash is an effective year-round fundraiser. Whether it’s spring pollen or winter road salt, there’s always something outside that’s making cars dirty.

Host the car wash at your school or gym parking lot. Engage your team members in various roles, such as advertising your car wash to passing drivers, actually washing the cars, or accepting payments. Be sure to let all customers know that their support helps keep your basketball team on the court.

11. Dog wash

Just like cars, the furry friends in your community are always getting into something that causes them to pick up a bit of dirt or mud. Invite community members to bring their dogs to your team’s dog wash fundraiser.

Set your team members up with the necessary supplies, such as a water source, dog shampoo, treats, cups, and towels. Make sure to offer a few pointers before the event, such as making sure to get all the shampoo out so no one leaves with a half-clean pet.

To earn a little extra money, you can also offer walking services to help pets get their daily exercise.

12. Popcorn sale

Cheesy cheddar, salted caramel, and cinnamon are just some of the delicious popcorn flavors your team can sell as part of a popcorn sale fundraiser.

This fundraising idea is pretty simple to get started. You’ll need to partner with a popcorn fundraising partner to provide the necessary supplies, such as order forms. Then, you can give each of your team members a form and encourage them to go door to door or reach out to family members to sell popcorn tins.

Your team will earn a profit while your supporters can enjoy a delicious snack!

13. 50/50 raffle

A 50-50 raffle is another win-win fundraising idea that can support your team while offering one lucky winner a valuable cash prize. In a 50-50 raffle, you’ll sell raffle tickets and choose a winner. Half of the jackpot will go to the winner, and the other half will support your basketball team’s fundraising efforts.

Sell raffle tickets at your games or tournaments and select a winner at the end of the season or competition.

14. Concessions

You can earn donations continually throughout the basketball season by selling concessions at games and tournaments. Offer a fully-stacked snack bar or booth at your games with chips, popcorn, drinks, cookies, and other snacks. Recruit a few volunteers to manage the concession stand for each game. Make sure to also offer a tip jar to collect extra donations!

15. Shoe drive

Since they’re still growing, youth athletes notoriously require new shoes frequently, no matter if they’re playing basketball, football, or soccer. But what happens to the shoes they outgrow? With a shoe drive fundraiser, you can give these shoes a new life while raising money for your team.

If you aren’t familiar with shoe drive fundraising, here’s what the process looks like:

• Your organization partners with a shoe drive fundraising partner like Funds2Orgs.
• You host a shoe drive where you encourage community members to bring in their gently worn or new shoes to donate.
• Your shoe fundraising partner picks up the shoes you’ve collected and pays you for them.
• The shoe fundraising partner sells the shoes to small businesses in developing countries.

Offer a shoe-collection box at your basketball games and tournaments to collect shoes. Be sure to send email reminders to team parents and supporters to bring their gently used or new shoes with them to drop them off.

16. Basketball camp

You’ve already got coaches, players, and volunteers who know the game of basketball inside and out. Why not put their knowledge to use by hosting a basketball camp?

If your team consists of older players, such as older middle school or high schoolers, you can recruit them to act as camp counselors for the younger campers. Your counselors can lead campers through drills, new skills, and scrimmages. Require participants to pay a registration fee to support your fundraising initiative.

Incorporate these tips to make your camp a valuable, safe experience for attendees:

• Host the camp during the summer when students are out of school.
• Prepare your camp counselors with the necessary training, such as first-aid or CPR training.
• Equip counselors with necessary supplies, such as basketballs, whistles, and bibs for scrimmages.
• Create t-shirts for your camp to identify campers and generate a sense of community.
• Require campers’ parents to sign waivers so they are aware of any participation risks.

One of the best parts about hosting a sports camp is that this idea can be adjusted for any sport, whether that’s football, soccer, or baseball. To maximize fundraising for your team, you could even partner with another team at your school to make the camp more inclusive.

Spread the word about your camp through social media and email. Make announcements at games and encourage team parents to consider sending their younger kids to your camp.

17. Handwritten letter campaign

Handwritten letters tend to be much more personal and tangible than digital messages, making them the perfect mechanism for promoting your fundraising efforts. Gather your team members together to write or sign fundraising letters. Make sure the letters explain:

• Your team’s history, including how long the team has existed and highlighting some of your achievements
• Why you’re fundraising (whether to purchase new equipment, fund transportation costs, etc.)
• How donors can send in donations (whether by sending in a check or cash or donating online)

Be sure to address letters with recipients’ names to make them feel even more personalized. Emphasize that your fundraising efforts are urgent and critical so that every player that wants to can participate on your team. You can even include a team photo along with your handwritten letters to put faces to your cause, sparking empathy in recipients.

18. Pancake breakfast

Who doesn’t love pancakes? This beloved breakfast food can provide an effective fundraising opportunity for your basketball team.

Here’s what you have to do to launch a pancake breakfast fundraiser:

• Recruit volunteers and pancake chefs to prepare the food.
• Secure a large enough venue to hold all of your attendees, such as the school gym.
• Sell pancake breakfast tickets.
• Serve up the pancakes and watch the donations pour in!

Supplement your pancake breakfast with other breakfast items like bacon, sausages, eggs, fruit, and coffee. Boost your fundraising efforts by offering different combos at different price levels, such as just pancakes, pancakes and bacon, or a full-fledged breakfast plate.

19. Calendar sale

A calendar fundraiser will take a bit of creativity up front, but the result will be worth it for your fundraising outcomes. To collect images for your calendar, take candid and posed shots of your team throughout the year. Or, you can recruit a photographer to take photos of iconic or scenic locations in your community.

Then, use a calendar fundraising platform to upload your photos, print your calendars, and have them shipped to your supporters. This is an effective annual fundraising idea since organization-minded individuals will require a new calendar each year.

20. Auction

If you decide to host an auction fundraiser, your team would gather a variety of valuable items or experience opportunities and offer them up for bidding to supporters.

To make your auction applicable to your team, consider making the event entirely basketball-themed, with a variety of basketball-related items. These might include basketballs signed by star NBA or WNBA players or tickets to professional games.

To acquire valuable auction items, ask local businesses in your area to sponsor the event or ask your team parents’ to leverage any professional connections they might have to access relevant prizes.

21. Restaurant percentage night/tip jar

The local restaurant owners in your community are probably more than willing to help your basketball team out. Everyone loves to support their hometown teams, especially if you require fundraising support to stay in operation.

Ask a local restaurant owner to host a percentage night or tip jar fundraiser on behalf of your team. In a percentage night fundraiser, the restaurant would donate a percentage of its sales to your team. With a tip jar fundraiser, the restaurant would set out a tip jar at the register or host stand to collect donations.

Just like with an auction fundraiser, you can leverage the local connections that your team’s parents or volunteers have. You also might have team parents who are restaurant owners themselves and are willing to help out.

To make your restaurant fundraiser a success, encourage your team and supporters to go out to the restaurant on the day of your fundraiser. This can help foster team bonding while raising more for your cause.

22. Viral video challenge

You may also be interested in hosting a virtual fundraiser to engage your supporters online. Virtual fundraisers are effective because they allow supporters and participants to engage no matter where they are.

One of the most popular virtual fundraising ideas, especially for younger generations, is a viral video challenge. You can challenge your team members and supporters to complete a unique activity, such as a three-point challenge or dunk challenge.

Your team members will film themselves completing the challenge and tag their family and friends to encourage them to do the same. These posts should also include a link to your online donation page to spread awareness of your fundraising efforts. You can even create a rule that states that supporters can either participate in the challenge or have to donate instead.

This is a fun way to incorporate social media while raising awareness of your online donation form.

Bonus: 4 Basketball Fundraising Tips for Your Team

There are several steps you can take to make planning your basketball fundraisers easier and raise more for your team. Follow these best practices for fundraising success:

• Plan strategically. Don’t dive into your fundraiser without a clear plan. Before launching your initiative, ask yourself a few questions to build a solid strategy. For instance, consider what types of fundraising activities you’ve had success with in the past and why. Also, determine whether you’ll need to acquire new fundraising technology to plan and manage your initiatives. Lastly, craft your key messaging to explain to prospective donors why your team is worthy of their support.
• Choose the right fundraising partner/platform. Many of the fundraising ideas above require the support of an effective fundraising platform or partner. Be sure to choose the right fundraising platform based on your team’s fundraising style and goals. Request demos and reach out to your top options to get your questions answered. Make sure any platform you invest in is highly user-friendly and fits within your budget.
• Promote your fundraiser on multiple channels. A multichannel marketing strategy helps get the word out about your fundraiser to a wider group of potential donors. Promote your fundraiser using social media, email, texts, and word-of-mouth advertising to ensure that you can reach enough people to meet your fundraising goal.
• Thank your volunteers and donors. As you wrap up your fundraising efforts, remember to thank all donors and volunteers for their support by sending detailed thank-you notes or emails. These messages should describe the impact of donors’ contributions to your team. When you show supporters that their donations actually made a difference, they’ll feel much more satisfied with their decision to give and be more likely to support your team again in the future.

With these tips, you’ll not only be able to reach your goals for your current campaign but also lay the groundwork for greater community support in the future.

Wrapping Up

Fundraising is sometimes a necessary activity to keep your basketball team going, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a chore! With these fundraising ideas and tips, you can earn donations while engaging your team and community in fun events and initiatives.

Interested in learning more about the ins and outs of school and sports team fundraising? Review these additional free resources for more information:

• Top 10 Fundraising Platforms and Tools for Schools. Depending on the type of fundraiser you want to host, you may have to invest in a school fundraising platform. This guide rounds up the top 10 fundraising platforms that help schools host effective campaigns.
• 10+ of Our Most Effective Booster Club Fundraisers. If you’re a member of your school’s booster club, you may be tasked with hosting fundraisers for all school extracurricular activities. Here are 10 effective booster club fundraisers that can help you meet your goals.
• How to Organize A Fun Run Fundraiser in 7 Steps. Interested in hosting a fun run to support your basketball team? Use these seven steps to plan a successful event.

How the NBA started making billions of dollars with David Stern

On January 1, David Stern, the former commissioner of the US National Basketball Association (NBA), passed away. He led the NBA for 30 years in a row - from 1984 to 2014.

His marketing talent and business sense helped pull the association almost out of oblivion, and make basketball players the same world stars as football players and millionaires.

Before Stern's appointment as Commissioner, it seemed very real that the NBA would disappear. This basketball association looked very faded against the backdrop of the leagues of American football and baseball. And when Stern retired in 2014, the NBA had annual revenues of $5.5 billion, its broadcast revenues had grown 40 times over $1 billion in 30 years. The NBA had offices in 15 cities outside the United States. Her games have been broadcast in over 200 countries in over 40 languages. Compare for yourself: how much do you know about American football or baseball, but how much about American basketball?

The attractiveness of the business for investors has also grown. Shortly after Stern's arrival, the Chicago Bulls were sold for $16 million. And after 30 years of his work, the Los Angeles Clippers changed hands for $2 billion. Salaries also increased. The famous basketball player Charles Barkley recalled that in 1984 the average salary of players was $250,000. Now it is almost $9 million. He broke the record of the head of the National Football League, Pete Rozelle, for a year (1960–1989).

From deli to basketball

David Joel Stern was born on September 22, 1942 in Manhattan (New York, USA). His father ran the family's deli, Stern's Deli, where all three of his children worked from childhood. Stern chose a profession far from both trade and sports. First he received a degree in history from the prestigious Rutgers University (New Jersey). Then - a law degree from Columbia University. In 1966 he joined the law firm Proskauer, Rose, Goetz & Mendelsohn.

David's parents divorced when he was young. Like his father, he became a fan of the New York Knicks basketball team and often went to games with his dad.

Stern himself played for a while, and played well. His height was not basketball - about 176 cm (although, according to the sports website ESPN, he still turned out to be taller than the leaders of other US national sports leagues). “I played for my law firm's team in the New York Lawyers Basketball League. And it cost me most of the cartilage in my right knee,” Stern joked in an interview with The New York Times (NYT).

Being a basketball player is more profitable than being a football player at the end of the season), writes the author of the blog in Sports.ru. But even, for example, the 51st number in the NBA rating Malcolm Brogdon from the Indiana Pacers (Indianapolis) should receive $ 20 million. That is, he earns more than such football stars as the striker of the English Manchester City and Argentina national team Sergio or the goalkeeper and captain of the German Bayern München and the German national team Manuel Neuer. Brogdon's name doesn't mean much to the average person, and he's not the only one in the NBA: according to the rules of the NBA, based on its projected income, 51 players should receive at least $20 million this season.

His work as a lawyer also turned out to be related to sports. Proskauer, Rose, Goetz & Mendelsohn represented the NBA. Stern has been involved in several high-profile cases, including a 1970 antitrust lawsuit in which NBA player union president Oscar Robertson interfered with the NBA's merger with rival American Basketball Association (ABA). As a result, the merger had to be postponed for six years - the case in court dragged on until 1976. It had other important consequences. For example, before the players were actually serfs of the club: they did not have the right to negotiate a transfer to another team, at the same time they could be fired at any time.

How Stern increased the competition

In 1978, Stern was lured to the NBA, where he became general counsel. Then the post of vice president was created for him. In addition to resolving legal issues, he was responsible for marketing, PR, negotiations with television companies and much more.

The NBA star was waning in those years. In the 1980/81 season, out of 23 teams, 16 were unprofitable. The finals of the games were often not live, but recorded, and at an unpopular time - at 23.30. At 1980 a drug scandal erupted. An article in The Los Angeles Times claimed that 40 to 75% of gamblers use cocaine. The press then wrote about the NBA as an association overflowing with black players and drug addicts, Stern recalled in a conversation with ESPN. As vice president, he entered into negotiations with NBA member clubs to introduce anti-drug tests before games. The NBA was the first sports league in North America to implement this innovation.

In 1984, Stern took over the NBA. Other candidates were not even considered. He was number two in the NBA for several years, and his appointment seemed like a no-brainer. One of his first steps was to help small clubs. Restrictions were introduced on the size of the players' pay fund, which was tied to income from basketball activities (BRI, basketball-related income), and, accordingly, it is different every year. The first time it was $3. 8 million per team (in the 2018/19 season- $ 109.14 million, according to the Sports.ru blog dedicated to salaries in the NBA). This somewhat equalized rich and poor clubs—the rich could no longer buy up all the stars who needed to be paid a lot—and led to a new round of rivalry between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers, which seemed to have faded back in 1969.

Now the system of remuneration of players is arranged according to the principle of soft and hard ceiling, therefore it is permissible to exceed the originally announced limit. But there is an amount starting from which the NBA will have to pay the so-called "luxury tax" - in the 2018/19 seasonthe tax threshold was set at $132.627 million. And, finally, there is a hard ceiling that cannot be broken under any pretext: in the season just ended it is $138.928 million. club owners to find a compromise regarding remuneration: basketball players received the right to 53% of the income.

People, not teams

Current NBA Commissioner Adam Silver says Stern was among the founders of modern sports marketing - "one of the people who took modern marketing techniques and applied them to the sports league. "

He founded the licensing and sponsorship division of the NBA. Together with its director, he compiled a “dream list” of NBA partners (McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, etc.) and went on a trip around the country to persuade them to cooperate.

While still a vice president, Stern helped launch NBA Entertainment's basketball-related content division. And becoming a commissioner, he expanded the staff, agreed with video game manufacturers, and in the end, with his participation, a hit appeared - a series of sports simulators NBA Jam (the first came out at 1993).

He decided to promote star players rather than entire teams. If in the 1960s the rivalry between the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers was a battle of clubs, then under Stern it became the confrontation between Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. Stern's other star was Michael Jordan, who joined the Chicago Bulls in 1994.

In his first year as commissioner, Stern sold the rights to broadcast NBA games to an Argentinean TV channel for a ridiculous $2,000 a year. Every Sunday in a country where children dreamed of football, they showed that the ball can be dribbled with their hands. And it has borne fruit. When Argentinean Emanuel Ginobili was a child, he looked at Michael Jordan and thought he was from another planet. Since then, Ginobili has won the NBA championship four times with the San Antonio Spurs, although there had not been a single one of his compatriots in the league before.

Women, Greek and Canadian

David Stern added seven new teams to the NBA for a total of 30. The NBA Women's League was born in 1997 and the NBA minor league for the G League farm clubs in 2001. According to Stern, we need to work with young talents so that there are as many boys and girls as possible who “will start to dribble the ball with their hands instead of kicking it.”
The NBA was a purely American league. And now the title of its most valuable player is Giannis Antetokounmpo, a Greek born to Nigerian immigrants, and the NBA champion is the Canadian team Toronto Raptors with players from three continents.

In 1989, Stern waited four hours in Beijing to meet Chinese CCTV representatives, then persuaded them to broadcast the games for free. Now 18 million people watch the NBA games in China, and last year the Chinese Tencent and the NBA announced a five-year contract for $1.5 billion.

NBA - and defeated all rivals. That team was called the dream team, and upon their return they were honored, as Stern told the NYT, as if it were the Bolshoi Theater, the Philharmonic and The Beatles put together. “The dream team ignited interest in basketball around the world,” Stern recalled ESPN last year. – Before the Olympics-92 NBA games were shown in about 80 countries, today - in 215.

The following fact testifies to Stern's attitude towards the players. In 1991, Magic Johnson announced that he had HIV and was retiring from playing. The disease in those days caused irrational fear and disgust in society. Some did not want to play on the same site with Johnson, for fear of getting infected through scratches. But Stern launched a whole campaign of tolerant attitude towards HIV patients - doctors came to the players and talked about the disease. He insisted that Johnson not be crossed off the voting lists for the most outstanding player of the season - and he earned the award. The photo of Stern presenting the prize to Johnson was posted by the NBA commissioner in a prominent place in his office. He also pushed for Johnson to be included in the Olympic Dream Team.

Stern soft and hard

Stern liked to call himself Easy Dave, which can be translated as "easy Dave" and "easily inferior Dave." But among those around him, he earned a reputation as a tyrant. In 2005, Stern became concerned about the image of the players and introduced a dress code. At official NBA events, they were ordered to stick to business attire, abandoning shorts, wide pants, massive chains, bandanas and other attributes of gangsters and hip-hop fans.

This sparked strong protests from players, fans and even African American rights activists. The dress code was clearly infringing on the style that black players were used to. However, it brought a positive effect, Sports.ru noted: basketball players thought about their appearance, hired stylists, and developed their own clothing style. And, as a result, articles about their life outside the basketball court began to appear more often in the media.

Dress code - yes, it has entered the life of the players. But in another important issue, Stern did not succeed in insisting on his own. In the 2006/07 season, he introduced synthetic turf balls into the game, despite the dissatisfaction of the players: after test drives, they complained that the ball bounced off the floor differently. Already in December 2006, it was necessary to announce that the NBA was returning to the good old leather balls.

Stern was not soft on the guilty. Latrell Sprewell was suspended for the entire season-19 for assaulting a coach during training.97/98 - 82 games. In court, Sprewell's lawyer managed to reduce this period to 68 games, for which the NBA legal counsel received a severe scolding from Stern.

In 2004, during a match, the Detroit Pistons and Indiana Pacers teams fought - first with each other, and then with the audience. Nine players were suspended for a total of over 100 matches without pay, which resulted in a loss of about $11 million. “We couldn't let the barrier between players and fans break down. This would deprive us of the most accessible game in the world, where you could literally sit on the edge of the court and almost touch the players running past, ”Stern explained. But at the same time, he visited the family of Indiana Pacers player Ron Artest, who was suspended for as many as 86 games at his insistence, and helped his sick relatives get the necessary medical care.

He also interfered in the affairs of teams. In 2011, he banned New Orleans from trading players. For many years, Stern explained this decision briefly in all interviews: “It was in the interests of basketball.” And only two years ago, already retired, he condescended to details: “I offered the best option <. ..> But [Dell, who was in charge at that time of New Orleans] Demps, turned out to be a lousy general manager” (quoted from Championat.com). What is a lockout? . The first lockout began in the summer of 1995 and stretched out for two months, but ended before the start of the season. Only the summer fees suffered. The second lockout lasted only three hours in 1996. The third lasted from July 1998 to January 1999, due to which the start of the season had to be postponed and the number of games in it was reduced from 82 to 50. The last one was from July to December 2011 ., due to which the season was reduced to 66 games.

Player income was the key issue. For example, during the 1996 three-hour lockout, basketball players demanded more TV revenue, and the NBA agreed to increase payouts by a compromise amount.

Stern represented club owners during the lockouts who wanted to save money on players, but played more of an intermediary role. Reviews about him were mixed. Stern threatened the players. “I know where the bodies are buried in the NBA — I personally buried some there,” he said, appearing in the locker room of the basketball players during Star Weekend. True, the cases of his revenge were unknown to anyone, ESPN assures: he was an explosive person, but quick-witted.

"You can't be too nice a guy"

In 1986, just two years after his appointment as commissioner, David Stern interviewed former basketball player Rod Thorne for the position of vice president in charge of discipline. "They say you're a nice guy," Stern said thoughtfully. “Well, at our job, you can’t be too nice a guy.” “There was nothing soft about him,” recalled Thorn, who was hired and served as vice president of the NBA for 14 years. He expected you to do your job. And if not, he will not hesitate to tell you about it. From time to time I listened to similar things, sometimes in very harsh terms. But most of the time [Stern] was right." Stern loved to arrange mini-exams: ask subordinates questions, the answers to which he knew, and if they found it difficult to answer, he gave them a dressing down.
One of the top managers of the NBA admitted that many times he left his job with the thought of quitting. But at 10 p.m., Stern called, talking about new goals and how great it would be when they were achieved: “And I was ready to go through walls for Stern.”

The permanent commissar was forgiven a lot for his ability to ignite people, and for his ability to foresee the future of sports, and for the fact that he gushed with ideas. For example, in the 1990s a subordinate gave him the idea of ​​holding a press conference about a new deal with Coca-Cola, showing clips on video screens. Stern immediately ordered to figure out how to organize an event in a cinema: on a huge screen, the commercials would look unbelievably better. “You walk into his office thinking you've thought of everything,” the subordinate concluded. “And he says something that didn’t occur to you - and, damn it, he’s right!”

Sociologist Harry Edwards, who studies the characteristics of African American athletes, assured that Stern's reputation among the players only strengthened as a result of negotiations. But HBO sportswriter Bryant Gumbel called him egocentric and compared his negotiating tactics to the diplomacy of a plantation overseer. Stern himself, many years later, having already retired from the NBA commissioners, publicly responded to Gumbel: he called him an “idiot” in an interview with The Washington Post - another touch to his harsh character.

Season 19 lockout98/99 ended with the victory of the owners of the clubs, who set the maximum salary cap they needed for players, mainly due to Stern's actions, wrote the NYT. He sowed distrust between the players and agents, so that the athletes no longer knew who to listen to.

During the 2011 lockout, club owners were able to increase their share from 43% to 50% of revenues.

But even Stern's opponents recognized his merits. “Stern realized that the game is about the players, and raised their market appeal to such heights as never before,” said lawyer Jeff Kessler, who represented the union in numerous battles with Stern. “He was a worthy adversary and sometimes a pain in the ass, but I loved him despite all the difficulties.”

Commissioner farewell

As NBA commissioner, Stern made about $9 million a year, according to ESPN. In February 2014, he retired and could have lived an idle and comfortable life. But he is a natural workaholic. He actively advised his successor, taking the post of honorary commissioner of the NBA. He has served as an advisor to investment bank PJT Partners, venture capital firm Greycroft Partners, consulting business PricewaterhouseCoopers, and a number of other smaller firms.

Last November, Thorne, a former NBA vice president, and his wife dined with Stern and his wife. He was in good health and in excellent spirits. But on December 12, Stern suffered a stroke and emergency surgery, which, unfortunately, could not save his life. On January 1, he died at the age of 78. Shortly before his death, he was asked what he would have done differently in the NBA if he had had a chance to work those 30 years as commissioner again. “I don’t regret anything,” was the reply. “At the same time, I am aware of how crazy such a statement sounds.”

How much players in different leagues receive. Europrobasket study

The Europrobasket academy has released a comprehensive study on how much money foreigners earn in the top European championships. "Interception" carefully translated everything.

Important:

1) the amounts are in dollars, not in euros, as usual;

2) believe it or not, it's up to you, but the authors of the work say that in the process of preparation they talked with many agents, coaches and team members.

Average salary in Europe:

Spain. The strongest teams play in the ACB League, many Spanish clubs play in European competitions. Accordingly, there are the best salaries, and the budgets of Real Madrid and Barcelona exceed $40 million. On average, players in Spain make from 250 to 500 thousand per season, but there are exceptions: for example, Nikola Mirotic with his $ 4 million a year or Sergio Yull, Walter Tavares, Corey Higgins - they all earn about $ 2 million.

Turkey. Two teams from the Turkish championship play in the Euroleague, several more clubs in the Eurocup and the Champions League. The country has some of the highest salaries and almost half of the clubs have budgets in excess of $10 million. Leaders can get big money, for example: Shane Larkin - $ 3.7 million, Nando de Colo - 2.4 million, Jan Vesely - 2.2 million. At the same time, on average, foreigners earn 250-500 thousand in the league.

Russia. Some of the highest paid players in Europe play here. For example, Alexei Shved ($4 million last season, this amount may differ), Mike James and Nikola Milutinov (2.5 million each). But the average salary in the United League is about 200-450 thousand dollars per year.

Italy. Few people expected this country to be so high in the ranking, but elite basketball players also play in the Italian championship. For example, Milan defender Sergio Rodriguez, who receives about $ 2 million, is the highest paid player this season. On average, the salaries of foreigners in Serie A range from 180 to 350 thousand dollars.

Germany. The German economy is the fourth largest in the world, so it's not surprising to see the Bundesliga in this ranking. Four championship teams at once have more than $10 million for the season, and the budget of one of them, Bayern, is as much as $25 million. 1 million

Greece. The economic crisis has played a role in the amounts that foreigners earn in this country. But the Greek league is played by top basketball players, and three teams have budgets over $10 million (including Olympiakos, which plays in the second division). The average salary here is from 150 to 250 thousand, although Nick Calathes received 2.25 million in Pao last season, and Kostas Sloukas is now in Olya - 1.8 million.

Israel. Teams from here do not shine in Europe, and the money here is much lower. The exception is Maccabi, whose budget is $26.5 million, and point guard Scotty Wilbekin earns $1. 7 million. But this is not the norm, but the norm - from 80 to 250 thousand dollars.

France. Only two teams from here have a budget of more than $10 million, but this is one of the most reliable countries in terms of payments - contracts are guaranteed by the French government. Interestingly, only 30% of clubs' budgets go towards paying players, while in the rest of Europe these expenses account for more than half of club budgets. On average, foreigners here earn from 80 to 200 thousand dollars a season. Two years ago, the highest paid ASVEL player was AJ Slaughter with a salary of 300 thousand.

Average salaries in Asia:

China. The CBA is considered one of the richest leagues in the world, and most importantly, it is watched by more than 500 million people. This means that you can just come, play and build a business.

Stephon Marbury did just that: he earned $12 million in six years with the Beijing Ducks and became such a star that a statue of him was erected in front of the former team's arena. He went into coaching before starting his own company and selling basketball shoes to kids who can't afford branded shoes. Bliss? Bliss. Legend and forever secured.

The average salary of a foreigner in the Chinese championship is from 1 to 3 million dollars. That is, 4-6 times higher than in the most wasteful country in Europe - Spain. Tracy McGrady, Gilbert Arenas, Steve Francis, Ron Artest received so much in China. But there are exceptions, for example, Lance Stevenson, who is paid 4 million by the Liaoning Flying Leopards. .

The difficulty is that teams are allowed to have only two foreign players. But there are 19 clubs in the CBA, so they're really spending a lot.

South Korea. The rules of the local championship provide for a limit on foreign players - there can be no more than two of them in each team. If there are two foreigners in the club, then the ceiling of their total salary is set at the level of 700 thousand dollars, and if there is one, then by 500 thousand. On average, a legionnaire in KBL receives 250-400 thousand dollars, which puts the Korean championship on the same level with Spain, Turkey and Russia in this indicator.

But this is official information. A whole scattering of Europrobasket sources indicates that, together with bonuses, salaries here can reach up to 800 thousand dollars, which means that only China pays more.

However, remember that if you want to play in Korea, then get ready for 3-4 practices a day.

Japan. In 2016, two leagues were united here, and now the championship is flourishing. First of all, this concerns salaries: the local players in the season before last received an average of 147 thousand dollars, the players of the Japanese national team - about 417 thousand. Today, the highest paid Japanese - Yuki Togashi - earns $ 1 million.

Legionnaires in Japan receive an average of 120 to 300 thousand dollars. Life in this country is expensive, but teams tend to take care of all the expenses of their basketball players.

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